Discussion for article #237823
Symbols are a start; but the hate and vitriol has to end too. And, yes I’m talking to you GOP.
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Sojourner misses the point completely. No one is blaming the flag for any act of terrorism. We are pointing out that the flag commemorates and honors the terrorism that was done in the name of the CSA. Why would Mississippi or Georgia want to display in front of every government building in the state a reminder that they fought a war against other Americans in order to be able to keep other human beings as “property?”
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Um, the Confederate flag is still flying on the statehouse grounds in South Carolina, TPM.
Flush twice.
Intended or not, displaying this flag gives current day racists the belief that they have more support than they do.
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Symbolism aside, that flag is UGGGLY, a mish-mash of clashing stripes and stars and whatnot. I have seen a picture of the state’s original magnolia flag and it is far more pleasing aesthetically, not to mention morally.
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Solely from an aesthetic standpoint, it’s not appreciably worse than the Stars and Stripes, IMO.
In a way, the pity of the impending demise of the Confederate battle flag (not cobbled together with something else) is that it’s actually a very striking design. In that respect, it’s like the Nazi flag - an appalling waste of a good symbol.
Perhaps Mississippi should choose a gold lion rampant on a field of azure. 
The rush to remove the flag without a behavior change is like the kids all hiding their gum under the desk top when the teacher comes in the room. It will mean nothing at all unless attitudes change and behavior changes.
Like everything else, the media has made this a one issue event and are only focusing on the Right and their responses. The topic of gun control boils to the surface again without one wit effort to help the paranoid understand their love affair with a gun. There is no one trying to help us all come to the middle of the road with the emotions being expressed. The pro-gun people really are afraid of loosing their freedoms and lives, why are we allowing the industry, driven purely by profit to keep stoking the fires of paranoia?
But I digress, symbols are OK if they aren’t highjacked into a circus of finely defined representations, the flag can still be evidence and should it helps us understand history. If we banished every offensive evidence of our history how will we be able to teach our children about the country’s dark sides? Should we remove all evidence of the Holocaust, will that take away the horror, no I don’t think so.
Should the flag be flown as it a representation of what we are now, no but eradication is the wrong answer too, and listening only to the politicians that are dependent on the attention to keep their jobs is totally the wrong approach also. Recently, the use of the American flag to represent the right wing radical notions of war and religion has tarnished my respect for it and turned it into only an advertising gimmick and frankly this will turn out to be the same flash in the pan. Everyone is making sure their names are in the “one issue frenzy” for the notoriety, but the diehards aren’t going to go away unless we can promote new ideas and not allow our freedoms to be usurped by one extreme party.
Come on journalists get off your a$$$$ and gives us all sides and complete look at the issues. While Nikki Haley is playing “super woman” how many are suffering in her state?
Using the Confederate rag is like waving a pompom as a cheerleader for racism. Making it clear that society no longer tolerates such behavior is good first step. As racism receives more societal disapproval some of the other reforms will become easier.
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The defenders aren’t defending the flag per se anymore than the people that call for its removal are blaming the flag for the war. The flag represents all that was wrong about slavery and about a region of the United Sates turning against its own nation because of that slavery.
So flying the flag is an endorsement of treason and slavery. Surely the south has other sources of pride?
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Wasn’t a war with massive destruction and deaths a pretty potent display of societal disapproval? What reforms, the current South and bigoted right wing would like bring back segregation with their religious hypocrisy and voting rights are being curtailed more and more turning back the clocks to some archaic idea that only rich white men should be allowed to vote. We have a major party and following in this country that spew hate and lies about “the others” all because of the audacity of a black family to occupy our White House, I think “White” being the operative word.
Removing the pompom is like throwing a pebble in the ocean and admiring the ripples it makes. I have no reason to support flying a confederate flag anywhere anytime, but this whole debate at this time is a media stunt not an actual societal display of disapproval.
But it won’t matter now because the media will move on to Obamacare complaints, yet again by the GOP, never bothering to cover the good side because the good side isn’t what corporate media wants. There is no profit in objectivity.